It’s so hard to buy presents for some people. I hate the Christmas “gift sets” of crummy toiletries. They say, “I know I have to buy you something, but I don’t care enough to find out what you really like.” There’s an entire store devoting to this gift giving ethic. It’s called Brookstone. The store full of overpriced nonsense that no one needs. A motorized grill brush? Gee, how personalized! A nose hair trimmer (ok, this is practical, and necessary for some, but giving this as a gift is just awful)! How romantic! A towel warmer! Wow, you spent a ton of money on something I’d be too embarrassed to regift! Brookstone, when you have to appear to care but really are compensating by making a large cash outlay instead! Merry Christmas.
Yes, you know, I’ve always wanted an 8-watch watch display/storage box. Oooh, whatever would I do without a 20 spice travel spice box! Seriously, what kind of pretentious prick would bring their own spices with them? I can see a little 20 spice sampler but to market it as a travel spice box. “Excuse me grandma, that roast is awfully bland, I just need to add my own rosemary and maybe a little cumin. Carry on.”
I often wonder, when I’m looking through store ads and walking through stores, who is the person who actually wants the 5 day weather forecaster? Do I really need an electronic device that can only give me the weather? Can’t I use my laptop or my cell phone to do that?
Oh well, hopefully, that weather forecaster will find itself in the arms of someone who truly desires that one-trick-wonder, overpriced gadget. And those nose hair trimmers will be be seen as practical gifts rather than criticisms. And that towel warmer will be seen as something exciting rather than something that takes up too much room on critical bathroom counter space.
I have noticed that I’m fairly obsessed with egg nog. I’ve written 5 blogs that are entirely or at least mostly about egg nog!
It’s funny, I am always looking for good, non-alcoholic, egg nog. And because I’m picky, I’d prefer that it was low cal and didn’t contain the dreaded corn syrup.
My husband is an enabler and just picked up my first container of C.F. Burger Light Egg Nog of this holiday season. I forgot how much I like this stuff. Last year I tried 8 different egg nogs and, after rereading last year’s blogs, I realized that this came in as my #2 choice. And it was #2 because it had corn syrup and copious amounts of sugar.
It’s funny that I had forgotten that my favorite nog last season was Horizon organic nog. I’ll have to pick that up again. I’ve noticed that sometimes companies change recipes so I’ll be curious to see if Horizon is the same this year.
Last year I tried:
- Giant Eagle Egg Nog
- Dean’s Ultimate Egg Nog
- Dean’s Golden Custard Nog
- Horizon Organic Egg Nog
- Dairyman’s Holiday Nog
- C.F. Burger Light Nog
- Silk Soymilk Nog
- Trader Joe’s Light Egg Nog
- Trader Joe’s Egg Nog
So far this year, I’ve tried:
- Dairyman’s Holiday Nog
- Silk Soymilk Nog
- C.F. Burger Light Nog
They’ll all good in their own way, but maybe I’ll give making my own nog another go. Or maybe I’ll find my Smith’s Dairy holiday nog. That was my old favorite, but I couldn’t find it last year.
I should’ve taken a picture, it was too funny. But to the person who had the large, metallic car plaque that said “Thug Life” on the back of his/her Ford Contour at the Chick-Fil-A, cheers. I see you’re living the thug life. You know, in your Ford Contour at Chick-Fil-A. I know tons of thugs who spend Saturday afternoon in a Chick-Fil-A that, at the time, was filled with a show choir in full dress (the boys wore tux pants, white shirts and bow ties while the girls were in tea length, spaghetti strap red sequined gowns) singing Christmas carols. If that doesn’t scream thug life, well, then I don’t know what thug life is.
Also, to the girls who attend my local high school, the word is spelled “d-o-u-c-h-e”. If you’re going to insult people by writing about them on the bathroom stalls, spell it right. There’s no “s” in douche.
And finally, to you, Mr. Pepsi vending machine in the locker room, you stole my $1.50! Boo. And then I decided that it was creepy to be in a dark locker room by myself. Isn’t that a scene in every horror movie that’s ever had a scene in a school? The lone girl in the dark, empty locker room. And, no, I don’t have an overactive imagination! So, I decided against beating up the pepsi machine and found another one in a well lit, populated hallway. And the only thing it had was that gross mango melon Sobe lifewater. I should’ve quit when the first machine ate my money.
Did you ever see the episode of Spongebob where Spongebob and Patrick find a baby scallop? Patrick isn’t helping and Spongebob shows Patrick all the dirty diapers he’s changed.
There’s a garbage can full of diapers. Then there’s more, and more. The diapers are in the walls. There’s a landfill with bulldozers moving all the diapers just outside the house.
I have that problem with litter. Every day I have to clean my cat’s litter box. It takes an average of 10 minutes. And I only have ONE cat!
Rin goes through at least 35 pounds of scoopable litter each week (I’ve tried other litter, the scoopable seems to be the best choice, but it’s expensive. I spend at least $13/wk on litter, that’s about $700/yr!). I save each litter container and, when it’s empty, I fill it back up with “used” litter. But, the used litter takes up more room, so I’m constantly having to find thick bags to use for the litter that won’t fit into the container.
So, every time I run out of containers/bags to put the used litter in, I am reminded of that Spongebob episode.
(I know that it is not normal for a cat to urinate this much. She urinates more in one day than my two previous cats did in a week. She has active feline leukemia, and obviously some other problems. She looks healthy, she is active/playful. I’ve talked to the vet about it. There is little point in treating the cause of the excessive urination. First, I don’t want to stress her. Second, visits to the vet are risky for her and the other cats. Three, the problem isn’t effecting her quality of life. I make sure she has plenty of water and I keep her litter box clean.)
The last time I was at Hilarities it was over on West 6th street (or something like that). Now it’ s on E 4th. The old place was a dive. The new place is really pretty and gigantic. There’s a restaurant, the Champagne bar, Kevin’s Martini Bar (which is beautiful. it has a really long, curved pink, lit bar. It was closed tonight, but I had to walk past it to get to the restroom) and the comedy club.
The food was pretty good for bar food. Maybe they could walk across the alley and give the House of Blues some pointers on how to make good bar food. And the drinks didn’t taste like hairspray. They really, really need to give the House of Blues pointers in this department.
Anyway, enough about the House of Blues. There are a few things I don’t understand about Hilarities. With such a giant building, why is there no backstage? The comedians have to walk through the crowd to get to the stage. That just seems like maybe its not the best way to get the comedians to the stage. Also, why is the air on full blast? It’s almost December. I had to wear my coat the whole time I was there.
The opening act was painful. But next was a guy named Mike Lucas. He was pretty funny. But, happily, the headliner, John Caparulo was really good.
I never thought that poop jokes could be so funny. My husband loves him. We bought his DVD.
While standing in line after the show, I heard this older woman saw “my hands are all bloated from the alcohol”. Now the show was less than two hours long. How much alcohol did she drink? Holy crap. People are messed up.
The actual only thing that made the night kind of crappy is the fact that I had $50 in gift cards for the place. Somehow, I only got credit for $35. As they were a gift, I didn’t have the receipt, but I know the person who gave them to me would not have gotten that wrong. Oh well, otherwise, the night was pretty cool.
My cat got stuck in our Christmas tree. Talk about a cliche, except for one thing: our tree is artificial. I just put that up (with the help of my kids and a friend of Thing 2) the day before.
Last year the cat, Rin, was really well behaved around the Christmas tree. Of course, I doubt that she was able to get close to it often as our old dog used to attack her viciously whenever we weren’t around.
This year, with just the one dog who’s rather afraid of her, Rin has decided that the tree is a giant cat toy composed of many other cat toys. It took her less than an hour to start knocking off all the bottom ornaments. I don’t have many glass ornaments, but I made sure the few I have are higher up the tree now.
I didn’t actually witness the stuck-in-a-tree incident. Thing 1 said that she was playing video games when she heard the cat incessintly meowing. Thing 1 went over and freed Rin.
It’s rather hilarious. She’s not the most cat-like cat. She’s not even a little graceful. She will come when she’s called (but she won’t come all the way, and she won’t come quickly, unless there’s food involved and then she’ll race over with all the lack of dignity of a dog). She will sort of walk on a leash. Although, I guess, getting stuck in a tree is a cat cliche.
Merry Christmas!
The new Kia commercial (I don’t know which car it’s for, I didn’t pay that much attention) is obviously ripping off The Fratellis “Chelsea Dagger”. Well, they rip off their car designs, might as well rip off their theme music too!
I don’t know what car it is, but one of them looks like a knock off Honda Accord. My husband calls it the “Afford” (in a truly derogatory way). Kias and Hyundais are designer imposters of cars. And everyone knows that the imposters are never as good as the products they’re imitating.
Speaking of bad imitations, I just saw Shakira on Saturday Night Live (I know, it’s a repeat). What happened to her? She’s a cheap Beyonce knock off. She’s lost everything that made her unique. Even her outfit was a rip off of an outfit I saw Beyonce wearing. And that song, She Wolf, is embarrassingly bad. Seriously, if you’re going to howl, do it with feeling. WTF is that half-hearted howl? It’s a limp, damp handshake of a howl and nobody likes a limp, damp handshake. I feel embarrassed for Shakira whenever I hear that awful song. And that’s the single off that album. I can’t imagine what shit the rest of the songs must be.
I cracked open my first container of nog on Thanksgiving. It’’s a wonderful thing, the first nog of the season. Unfortunately, I don’t generally have the last nog of the season until sometime after the New Year. By then I’ve been on a 2 month nog bender (non-alcoholic so instead of being hung over I’m bloated with all the extra calories).
This year’s first nog was Dairyman’s Holiday Nog. It’s one of my standbys. It’s lower cal than some of the nogs but it still has high fructose corn syrup which I prefer to avoid. – Actually, a serious tangent, but I feel this is interesting. Some industry group for high fructose corn syrup put together this web site that tries to refute all the negative (but accurate) information about high fructose corn syrup and its damaging health effects. The group must be spending a lot of money on search engine placement too because it’s the first site that comes up on google and some site called “right health” when one searches for “high fructose corn syrup”. And seriously, how dishonest is it to have that as the first result on a site that portrays itself as a health information site. Before the Mayo Clinic, before the National Institutes of Health, an industry group site is listed. Great. I’m sure that they will tell us the truth about their product. If you can’t trust a special interest group, who can you trust? (that’s sarcasm for those who aren’t sure)
We finished the Holiday nog but I have some Silk Soymilk nog in the frig to keep me going.
Let me preface this by saying, marital problems aren’t funny. Especially when children are involved. They are painful and messy for everyone involved.
However (now that my disclaimer’s been put out there), a professional athlete getting beaten by his wife with his own gear is hilarious. I realize that Tiger Woods is a golfer not some big monster football or basketball player. But the idea is so absurd that I can’t help but laugh. There is no way that this particular situation could be more humiliating. Pro athlete beaten by gorgeous blonde wife with his own clubs. Maybe it’s good he doesn’t play a team sport because I don’t think he’s ever make it out of the locker room with a shred of dignity.
